Monday, July 17, 2006

Even More Mystery Images

Here 's me trying to draw Katie's girl designs.

This cat is an inbetween-forgive the flatness and weird nose...

Here's Katie drawing my designs:

Actually I really like the things that happen in animation when one artist designs a character and another cartoonist poses or animates it and adds some of his or her own style to it.This used to happen in a few select places- Clampett's cartoons, early Jones cartoons, Tex Avery's MGM cartoons, Terrytoons, Spumco and it happened like crazy in early Hanna Barbera TV cartoons-I'm going write about this process in a later post.

Lots of new styles spring to life when you mix and match artists and let them influence each other. This is illegal today except at my house where we made this cartoon.

I had lunch with a pitiable cartoonist who was learning to draw some modern cartoon and being forced to draw exactly like these godawful crummy model sheets. She looked suicidal after finding out one of the shows she watched as a child is purposely uncreative.This is how many cartoonists today feel when they discover the ugly reality of modern cartoon production. I was severely depressed all through the 80s having to work on cartoons that were bad on purpose (even though the people in charge didn't know they were being bad on purpose).

Here's a mild example of what used to happen at studios who would let it:

Katie design + Hers and John's poses + Copernicus' Brad Cayford's animation = the beginning of a new style that just might turn into something really different as it evolves:

84 comments:

Is Joe Dirt one of your favourite (or least favourite) movies or is that a vague sexual euphamism?

Also, I like the pictures overall (the brown-haired girl has a certain Cheryl Teags look that I like) but the construction on her face in the second picture looks a bit off somehow. I think it's the eyes. Oh well, you'd have to stare at it for a while to trly see it so I guess it's not too noticeable.

Would it not be possible to animate Katies drawings EXACTLY the way she draws/colors them? Any time I've seen her drawings 'cleaned up' they lose about 90% of the energy. Is it just technically impossible or what?

I will probably get scolded for this but...Katie has a great style. I like it. For animation though, I don't.I looooooooove John's interpretation far better than any Katie original.Do I think Katie sucks? Not at all. I actually bid on one of her auctions for a piece she had on Ebay. As a non-moving piece of art, she is fantastic. I need John K. in my animation.John's "Katie girl" looks far more sultry and...I don't know...dirty, and that works for me. Her stuff is too cutesy, even when she is trying to be dirty.If these are stills from the upcoming "Pussy cats" story with the girls in the bedroom while the cat wants to hump her...than it has to be John's style. It works much better for that type of story.

Extraordinary stuff! These images are so funny and full of life. Katie's designs are brilliant and they might be really difficult to animate, so I can't wait to see the completed cartoon. Oh, and that girl in the third picture looks just like my ex-girlfriend. No, not the pig... I mean the other one :-)

"I had lunch with a pitiful cartoonist who was learning to draw some modern cartoon and being forced to draw exactly like these godawful crummy model sheets. She looked suicidal after finding out one of the shows she watched as a child is purposefully uncreative."

Was this her first job, then?

(Also, do you mean she was pitiable, meaning "to be pitied", or "pitiful" meaning crummy/lousy? I'm sure you meant the former)

Great drawings! Good colaborative effort. I love the cleaned up Katie drawings. I do like Katie's energy in her sketches, but I also think they look great cleaned up. I dont thik they would translate very well in her sketchy form.

I think you're all crazy, the second one is where the girl looks funniest. Not the most beautiful, but that why she is so funny!If i was someone's boss and that person threw out such a drawing I'd fire him/her immediately!

Okay, my turn to be picky... In the animation, when the girl is rocking from side to side and the cat gives her the lei, the shifting of weight on her legs and the movement in her shoulders would seem to imply a counter motion in the hips, but they are realtively stationary. I'd like to see 'em rocking, in an inviting sort of way... But I like this stuff, and the synergy is cool.

You know.. Did anyone think that the Joe Dirt DVD on the ground there, might be a visual representation of one of Al's lyrics? He does make a lot of refrences to movies and things, so that's probably it. It's part of the lyrics.

Those are some very nice drawings, John. The girls are nice, and I like the pussy drawing in the first and last image (the second one doesn't seem to match with the fun style of the girl.. which has a really cool pose, by the way).

I really like the cat's animation, especially, during the part where he first puts a rat(?) on the ground, looks at her, and then quickly runs off again.

So, this really has no connection to this post--although I want to know where I can catch all these Katie cartoons, because they look astounding.

In reality, I'm trying to figure out how to get press copies of the Ren and Stimpy Lost Episodes for my weberbitsite, Never News (http://nevernews.squarespace.com). The world is a confusing place, and big companies hate little websites.

Also, John, I'm in love with you and terrified of you at the exact same time. How is that possible?

Hey, John. Is that from the same video you showed me over at your house? Every cartoon you do has so much amazing stuff going on, it seems different every time I see it. That's why I never get tired of your cartoons, and I can watch them over and over again and see something new each time! Good Stuff!

You're absolutetly right John, the only purpose of Toons in the 1980's was to sell toys, that decade truely marked the down fall of animation in this country.

Yeah, Bakshi's Mighty Mouse really ruined things for everybody. When I bought that set of Mighty Mouse toys at Wendy's, I knew I was just being a good little consumer, and not a die-hard animation fanatic.

I'll bet that's fun, trying to draw other people's character designs. I remember my brother Matt and I used to do that. He'd draw a character, I'd copy it, and then he'd write a bunch of criticisms of my drawing like WRONGLY SHAPED CHEEKS; EYES TOO LARGE; STRAIGHT TAIL TOO THICK etc. We should do that again!I think John's interpretation of Katie's character designs are funnier-looking -- that's where I think John's strong point is. However, I like Katie's drawing style too because her characters tend to look cuter and sexier.

By the way, that clip is awesome! I can only imagine what it will be like when it's set to music! I love the Pussy character and the funny things he does.

Yeah, Bakshi's Mighty Mouse really ruined things for everybody. When I bought that set of Mighty Mouse toys at Wendy's, I knew I was just being a good little consumer, and not a die-hard animation fanatic.

You don't understand what I saying. Most the 1980's toon were made for just the reason of promoting toys. There was no entertainnmnet value at all for alot of 1980's toon. Might Mouse was very rare exeception, it actually had enterainment value. Shows like He-man and Rainbow Brite were only made to push toys, they were produced my mattel. This still goes on today, "Batman Beyound" was only made push toys for the WB, Paul Dini himself said this.

You don't understand what I saying. Most the 1980's toon were made for just the reason of promoting toys. There was no entertainnmnet value at all for alot of 1980's toon. Might Mouse was very rare exeception, it actually had enterainment value. Shows like He-man and Rainbow Brite were only made to push toys, they were produced my mattel. This still goes on today, "Batman Beyound" was only made push toys for the WB, Paul Dini himself said this.

Oh, I happen to love He-Man. Never could stand Rainbow Brite, though. Of course, He-Man doesn't have the spectacular animation of the 1940s but I never expected it to.

As for Paul Dini, I've admired his work ever since he broke into the animation business by writing those Quacula scripts for Filmation. You gotta start somewhere, and I still love those cartoons today.

Cute girls are reeeeally hard to animate by the way, but both Katie and I love drawing them and most people love to see them animated so it's our duty to try.

Could you please elaborate on this, John? I animated a somewhat skanky (yet entirely crazy) female in my student film and I didn't find her particularily hard. What exactly gave you two the most difficulty?

>Could you please elaborate on this, John? I animated a somewhat skanky (yet entirely crazy) female in my student film and I didn't find her particularily hard. What exactly gave you two the most difficulty?

Man, I find that drawing girls is uber-hard. I tend to draw really jagged and angular (read: poorly). The soft curves of the female figure, the delicate lines and pleasing shapes that make up a woman's body and their delicate features escape me completely. Men are easy to draw because we're grotesque.

I tried to draw Red Hot Riding Hood for a school project. It was terrible, the 24 second "inking" and shitty photoshop colouring destroyed an already bad drawing:

I love this clip! Katie's drawings always have great sense of action and movement and I wondered if the animators would be able to keep these qualities. Judging from this clip, it looks like a great success. Perhaps the finished cartoon will have more fluid animation, but it looks excellent this way too. Can't wait to see it synchronized with music.

>>I tried to draw Red Hot Riding Hood for a school project. It was terrible, the 24 second "inking" and shitty photoshop colouring destroyed an already bad drawing:http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v140/Toonami/<<

Jorge, are you talking about the drawing of Red with Bugs Bunny? Actually, I think her pose is pretty good, and only the insecure inking spoils the drawing. I agree that drawing girls is really hard, and achieving the graceful and well balanced figure is sometimes a real challenge. I struggled really hard with an illustration yesterday, and found myself re-drawing the same girl in slightly different or adjusted poses for several hours until I reached some half-acceptable result that I'm going to put on my blog in a couple of days.

>>Could you please elaborate on this, John? I animated a somewhat skanky (yet entirely crazy) female in my student film and I didn't find her particularily hard.<<

Well everything comes easy to you doesn't it, David?

Some of us have to struggle.

Calm down, sir. I didn't mean to imply that I was in any way a better animator than you. I'll even provide this link to my film so that you can see for yourself if I succeeded in my female animation or not.

Wow, that animation is so awesome to see. It is so lively! I thought it was hand drawn (not flash) until I read in these posts that is was done with flash. I can't wait to see the final video! AWesome...

You can't even draw, much less animate, and you want to "talk shop" with John Kricfalusi?

Well, I tried to find a link to all your great artwork that could easily show me what's wrong with mine but no such luck. So, for now, I'll have to assume that your some spiteful little shit with no clue as to what you're talking about. Like your made up moniker says, let those that know how do the work. >:P

If everything came easy to me in this business, I'd have three animated TV shows all pulling the same numbers the last episode of M*A*S*H got as well as several short films just lighting up the festival circuit including Cannes and the like all the while raking in more than enough money to be comfortable.

I'm definitely struggling much more than you, John. If you were going for sympathy with that statement, it didn't work.

I could not post on Katie's blog. Send word to Katie for me, John, her drawings kick ass. I'm trying to post that same quality on my blog instead of grey sketches I have. I'm also getting a mac next month, hells yeah. Can't wait for Katie's next post.

Damn! I am learning so much reading this blog. Thanks John K for everything you've done so far concerning this blog. This is what the Internet is about.David Germain, I like the concept and the jokes in your short cartoon and I'm damn sure you put a lot of work into the execution. Kind of reminds me of Frank Tashlin on Black Forest acid. The art strikes me as very much like a lot of the Flash stuff I've seen, like Nasty Santa from JibJab. Not that any of my stuff is a tenth as good. I'm still learning.

It reminded you of Frank Tashlin's work. Thanks, I'm taking that as a huge compliment.

Actually, my Hansel und Gretel film has only gotten the two extreme reactions: some who really love and some who really hate it. I have yet to hear from someone just inbetween. What does this say about its place in the art world?